Review of the state-of-the-art on fungal damage of wood materials showed that a combination of period of cumulative time when moisture and thermal regimes are above specified minimum is needed for fungal activities to cause biological decay in wood. The long-term performance of a typical wall assembly was evaluated using an existing computer model of heat, moisture, and air transfer in conjunct...

This paper addresses a number of problems relating to climatic change and human health. Following an introduction outlining the overarching issues, a short summary is given on climatic change and its anthropogenic causes. The rest of the paper then focuses on the direct and indirect impacts of global climatic change on health. Direct effects comprise changes in the hygrothermal stress response ...

For many years, the housing environment has been acknowledged as one of the main settings that affect human health. Living and housing conditions are the basis of many factors influencing residential health. Still, to date there is no commonly agreed upon definition of ‘healthy housing’, and there are still major gaps in the knowledge on how housing conditions may affect health. Epidemiological...

Energy retrofit of existing masonry buildings has become attractive to meet demands for reduction in energy consumption. Retrofit may, however, introduce moisture risk that needs be assessed. Hygrothermal simulation analysis is often conducted this respect. Nevertheless, hygrothermal interior insulated bare brick exposed driving rain can challenging due the many aspects involved determine heat-...